Know Your Street Heroes & Villains

From the Jackie Karma Bible:

Jackie Karma: Ten years ago, Jackie Karma and Marcus King worked together to clean up the corrupt streets of New York. Since that time, Jackie has retired from competitive martial arts, completed a law degree, and is working in Manhattan as John Carmichael, attorney.

Trained by a secret martial arts order in the ways of the Golden Lion, Jackie is a master of unorthodox fighting styles, which he uses to full effect. Once Jackie emerged as a force in the late sixties, he abandonded the order, and the order disbanded (although remnants remain together as the Sabaki Boys). In the years since they disappeared, Jackie and Marcus have become street legends, and their return lifts the inner city’s spirits.

Marcus King: Marcus was once your prototypical angry young black man. Putting aside his resentment of white men of privilege, he formed a strong bond with Jackie Karma in the late sixties, and the two formed a legendary duo. After he and Jackie gave up a life of physical combat, he drifted from the Black Panthers into community activism. Exchanging fists of fury for a headful of knowledge, Marcus is doing research in the city library when Jackie tracks him down.

Marcus’s fighting style was reliant upon street brawling as much as anything, but his excellent athleticism allowed him to pick up a few moves from Jackie.

Gil Gunn: The baddest of the bad back in the day, Gunn was once a high powered pimp and heroin dealer, but he’s been gone for the better part of a decade, having been kicked out of town by Jackie, Marcus and Bobby Howler. Now he’s back, with an array of cheap pills and vicious smack designed to send users into orbit. Jackie initially figures he needs to take Gunn out again in order to stop the city from sliding further into despair, but he begins to realize the stakes are much, much higher than New York City.